China

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Repurposing antiquated buildings is on the rise in China, and this proposal by Tianhua Architecture Design Company serves as a prime example. Planned for a site in the Hexi district of Tianjin, the Shanghai-based practice will soon transform a 1917 textile mill into a contemporary art gallery and private museum.

The architects, who have adapted their design to emphasize the gridded layout and high ceilings of the existing structure, plan to insert a garden courtyard deep into the building’s core. This will not only counterpoint the structure’s industrialized aesthetic, but will provide natural light deep into the interior while preserving the exiting cruciform layout. 

schmidt hammer lassen architects has unveiled a new cultural hub for Ningbo’s Labour Union. Planned to serve both the city and the union’s nearly three million members, the “Home of Staff” will unite two stepped complexes of support, health, education, culture and leisure facilities with a half a kilometer long central park.

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Construction has commenced on MAD’s Chaoyang Park Plaza within one of Beijing’s largest public parks and central business district. A continuation of Ma Yansong’s “Shan-Shui City” concept, which aims reintroduce nature into the urban realm, the mixed-use complex reinterprets natural formations illustrated in traditional Chinese paintings as contemporary “city landscapes.”

“Like the tall mountain cliffs and river landscapes of China, a pair of asymmetrical towers creates a dramatic skyline in front of the park,” described MAD. “Ridges and valleys define the shape of the exterior glass facade, as if the natural forces of erosion wore down the tower into a few thin lines.” 

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Videos

amphibianArc has been announced as winner of the Ningbo Yinzhou Southern CBD Portal Planning competition. Commissioned by the same developers of the Ningbo Museum designed by Wang Shu, the "transit-oriented" proposal aims to become the "driving force" of urban life in the masterplan's fourth and final phase.

As part of the CA Group’s lecture series, “Architour,” one of the Executive Board of SeARCH, Bjarne Mastenbroek will give a lecture at 15:30 on April 25th at Tongji Architectual Design (Group) Co., Ltd.(TJAD) auditorium in Shanghai. For 2013 through 2015, “Architour” has as its theme “New Force of Architecture – Leading Young Architects”: each year, the CA Group will select nine young, global leaders in architecture (four from Asia and five from the West) to lecture on topics that cross typologies and disciplines, from architectural design, urban planning to interior design. Sou Fujimoto, Christian Kerez, Thomas Heatherwick and Ensamble Studio were part of the series’ speakers.

Construction has begun on the new Nanjing Jianye District office tower in China. Designed by UDG China, the multi-level complex will house hundreds of government workers throughout almost 100,000 square meters of office space.

The fertile Anqiu region of China’s Shangdong Province is known locally as the land of “cultivation, stone hills, and creeks.” Thus, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting’s (LITTLE) design for Anqiu’s new cultural campus and fitness center is based upon these very elements.

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The United Design Group (UDG) China has begun construction the “Xieli Garden” resettlement community kindergarten in Wuxi. The three-story building, designed as a “spiraling elliptical ring,” aims to create an ideal learning environment for children with ample natural light and a direct connection to outdoor space.

Videos

Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a 40-story luxury hotel for Macau’s premier leisure and entertainment destination known as “City of Dreams.” Perceived as a single “sculptural element” united by an exposed exoskeleton mesh structure, the “simple volume” was extruded from its rectangular site as two towers connected at the podium and roof levels, with two organically-shaped bridges punctuating the tower’s center external void. This central void is then celebrated by a 40-meter tall, “grandiose atrium” that greets visitors as they enter the hotel.

Take a digital tour through the building and into the atrium via a newly released video, after the break...

Spanish architect Rafael de La-Hoz has designed a mirrored, 60-meter monument to commemorate the 30 anniversary of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA). The design, titled “A Cut between heaven and earth”, was “driven by an effort to analyze the process of abstraction and reinterpretation of the site.”

“Instead of locating the object on the road junction,” described La-Hoz, “the new location enables a more balanced dialogue with the existing buildings. [...] The monument examines the essential link between sustainability and beauty and can be further visually interpreted using estimates of the fixation distance.”

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